LXDE is the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. It is an excellent choice for older hardware or for users who wish for a complete window manager without all of the overhead required by KDE or GNOME. Since it is XDG-compliant, the PC-BSD Control Panel, AppCafe®, and Life Preserver will be available on the desktop and will integrate into LXDE's menus.

Figure 5.3a shows a screenshot of the default LXDE installation with the LXPanel open.

Figure 5.3a: LXDE Desktop on a PC-BSD System

In addition to PC-BSD's utilities, LXDE provides the following utilities:

LXPanel: desktop panel which is launched by clicking on the PC-BSD icon in the lower right corner of the desktop. To configure the panel, right-click the PC-BSD icon and select "Panel Settings" or "Add/Remove Panel Items" from the right-click menu.

PCManFM: found in Accessories ➜ File Manager. A file manager with features like drag and drop, tabbed browsing, built-in file search, file association with default application, thumbnails for images, bookmarks, and support for non-UTF-8 encoded filenames.